


Touch, Where Do You Lead

by seventhTense



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sad and Tired Boys Being Tired and Sad, Snuggling and Huggling, touch starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22083079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhTense/pseuds/seventhTense
Summary: A choice in three of Akira and Goro's darkest hours to reach out, to hold tight to one another, to not let go until the last possible moment lights a path that maybe, just maybe, they can travel togehter.Or, Sad Boi Hours, feat. needy cuddles
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 13
Kudos: 260
Collections: Quality Persona Fics





	Touch, Where Do You Lead

**Author's Note:**

> No additional content warnings here other than general Sad Boy Hours. Enjoy!

It had been a pretty long while since Goro made it a habit to come to Leblanc every and any afternoon he could do so . He started visiting regularly sometime around the late spring, and somewhere between then and now, in the middle of a blazing-hot summer, he had seamlessly transitioned to the point where ‘regular’ was a wholly insufficient description. He wasn’t there every day of the week, but it was a close thing. If anyone cared enough about his presence anywhere to notice, they’d count the days he didn’t show up in the back alley cafe as more surprising, at this point.

All of that was to say that he was in Leblanc _a lot,_ and yet for all the time he spent there, he had never yet seen Akira come home from whatever it was he did during his summer break looking this deeply, unfathomably tired. 

At the jingle of the bell, Goro turned towards the door, ready to give Akira a jaunty welcome home, as was his habit by now, and froze, mouth half-open. The young man in question had opened the door, sure, but he was just... standing there, mostly, half-slumped against the door jamb, body looking about five seconds from crumpling in on itself. Goro was torn- he didn’t know what the right thing to say would be in a situation like this, should he act sympathetic, comforting, would Akira find any sort of soft attitude offensive, should he-

“Jesus, kid, don’t drag the heatwave in here with you, come in and close the damn door,” Sakura barked, shattering Goro’s anxious reverie. “There’s little enough cold air in here as it is...”

Akira nodded weakly and shuffled his way inside, letting the door close noisily behind him. He seemed to expend a great amount of effort to even lift his head up enough to look for Sakura, lips halfway to forming a sloppy “Sorry,” but froze when he caught sight of Goro sitting at the counter. Goro blinked, anxiety spiking again- should he move, should he leave, is this a private matter, does Akira not feel comfortable speaking around him, what-

There was suddenly a warm weight pressed against Goro, and for a split second he absolutely did not know what it was. It was pleasant- human contact was almost always pleasant to Goro, barring the few obvious exceptions. He was online enough to have inevitably stumbled across a couple posts and articles about touch-starvation, had read enough official and fan-created materiel depicting his favorite characters as touch-starved, and was at least moderately self-aware enough to recognize the feeling in himself. So the sensation was nice, though considering the heat and that the most Sakura could apparently afford to stick in Leblanc to combat said heat was a pathetically small fan, the warmth of the whatever it was was rapidly transitioning from very nice to very uncomfortable.

It was just as he had this thought that Goro realized that it was Akira pressed up against him, body slumped against his side, head resting in the crook of his neck, a pose that would absolutely be considered a hug, if Akira had bothered to lift his arms from his sides. Goro supposed that his miniature anxiety episode must have blinded him to Akira’s approach, but Goro was having a hard time supposing much at all, because Akira was Almost Hugging him and his Head was _Nuzzled_ in the _Crook Of His **Goddamn** Neck_ and-

“Christ...” Sakura grumbled, spiking that lovely anxiety right back into Goro’s system, embarrassment burning through his capillaries, and he tried to move, to shift into a less conspicuous position, assuming that Akira would do the same, would feel just as unimaginably embarrassed as Goro that Another Human had seen a Vulnerable Moment between himself and Goro...

...but Akira just stayed there, breathing slowly, deeply, eyes seemingly closed, senses seemingly closed-off to anything but the body of the person he was slumped over.

Sakura grumbled something incoherent, then started moving somewhere behind where Goro could see, rustling cloth and fabric implying that he was removing and retrieving the things he had to remove and retrieve in order to go home. The older man walked around the counter, back into Goro’s line of sight as he headed for the door, waving a lazy hand at the two boys pressed together behind him. “No other customers coming today anyways. Akira, lock up when you’re... done with whatever this is, I guess. Don’t... make a mess?” He sounded like a parent trying uncomfortably to give his child responsible sex advice, and Goro wanted to replace his vital organs with concrete about as powerfully as he had ever wanted anything in his life. Sakura just sighed and shrugged. “Whatever,” he grumbled, and walked out, the jingle of the bell over the door echoing slightly in his absence.

The bell faded, and silence reigned over the little room that made up Leblanc. As the toxic sensations that had pumped into his veins from an authority figure like Sakura seeing something like this faded away, Goro wasn’t quite as paralyzed as he was at first, more just... torn. On one hand, he was very concerned as to what would make Akira act like this- had the Medjed crisis affected him this strongly? If so, then this was at least in part Goro’s fault, having crafted the plan as a last-ditch attempt to scare the Phantom Thieves out of their path before it collided bloodily with his, show them a taste of the kind of real-world consequences their actions could have when they made themselves a target.

Somehow, being responsible for Akira’s pain, especially pain this deep, _really_ got to Goro, and he instantly regretted every moment in his life that led him to being opposed to Akira’s Thief work, to having to even _pretend_ to be allied to someone like Shido, which was to say every single moment of his life. Half of Goro very much wanted to interrogate the hell out of Akira, to find out if this really was his fault, to find out if Akira really was hurting as much as he seemed to be, to find out _what the hell was going on._

The other half of him... wouldn’t be too bothered if they never moved from this position ever again, suffocating summer heat or not. To feel Akira, blessed, damned Akira, leaning like this against him, like Goro was the only person in the entire world who could keep him upright, to be _relied upon,_ to _matter_... a mental shutdown could make Goro go brain-dead right now and he’d be pretty okay with this being the last sensation he ever knew.

After a minute or two, more on instinct than an actual decision, Goro settled on a compromise between the two. Softly, hesitantly, he whispered “Akira?” His breath just barely ghosting over the other boy’s ears, so close to Goro’s face. Akira twitched, but didn’t respond otherwise, until Goro raised his hand and held Akira’s arm, just barely, just very gently, asked in that same soft tone, “What’s wrong?”

Inexplicably, Goro’s shirt started to dampen around the area where Akira’s eyes were pressed against the fabric of his button-up’s shoulder, and that little twitchy tremor ran through his body again, then several more times over the course of the following minute. On instinct, Goro’s hold on Akira’s upper arm grew a little firmer, his fingers moving in tiny, almost unnoticeable little circles, some genetics-deep instinct, or perhaps a memory from his youth, buried just as deep, telling his muscles that this was how to soothe, to comfort.

Eventually, Akira managed to summon the strength enough to speak, mumbling a rough, deep, gravelly “Rough day...” into Goro’s shirt, which Goro wouldn’t have managed to catch if the rest of the cafe hadn’t been so silent, if Sakura’s fan had been turned up even one notch higher.

“Ah,” Goro replied, stupidly, and his mind briefly raced for something more substantial to say in response, but the gentle hold on his arm and the slow rubs seemed to be enough to keep Akira stable, for the moment. Actually, Goro had a feeling, very strong and very sudden, from some unusually empathetic part of himself that he had forgotten existed until this moment, that if he asked one more thing, or even if he just put his other hand on Akira’s back to hold him more securely, or something, or anything, Akira would likely fall apart completely, and while Goro very much didn’t want to do that to Akira, he was more reticent to try anything like that mostly because he was very certain he wouldn’t be able to put Akira back together again afterwards.

So they just stayed there like that for a while, some unknowable amount of minutes, Akira gradually soaking the upper-right portion of Goro’s shirt, Goro gently rubbing Akira’s arm, both boys letting the simple magic of human contact work its wonders with their respective mental states.

Some time later, the light from outside the cafe seeming much more dim than it was when Akira first arrived, the little shakes and tremors ceased their irregular racking of Akira’s body, and the dampness of Goro’s shirt ceased growing in size. Goro didn’t move or speak for another minute or two, until, when it didn’t seem like Akira was going to act first, he let instinct take over. “You know, I’ve read that staying hydrated is very important, after something like this. And I’d imagine you’re likely rather peckish, as well. Shall I get us some... dinner?” He said the last part questioningly, not certain as to whether the time of day, whatever it was, would dictate this to be a late lunch or evening meal. 

Akira sniffled wetly, lifting his head slightly and shaking it, which had the likely unintentional side effect of briefly brushing Akira’s cheek against Goro’s, which made Goro blush **_very_ **hot and red, which seemed to make Akira blush just as much, going by the sudden burst of heat from where his s _ki **n still was moving against Gor** o’_s and then he moved and cleared his throat and mumbled a flustered-sounding “Uh, I should probably... uhm-”

After a few quick, calming breaths, Goro just smiled and patted Akira on the arm, starting to maneuver the two of them so that Akira was sitting next to Goro’s spot and Goro was the one standing up. “I’ve been here long enough and often enough to know where Sakura-san keeps everything. Sit and relax, I’ll be just a couple of minutes.”

Akira sat, and while he didn’t look very relaxed, he seemed mostly pacified at least, which was something. Goro gave him one last smile, which he was both satisfied and mildly flustered to see bring a light blush again to Akira’s splotchy-looking post-cry cheeks. Then Goro refocused on preparing as good a meal for the two of them as he could manage, any thought of the emotions of the past few minutes shoved firmly out of his head.

First, still thinking of the internet advice that had saved him from significant discomfort in his own worst moments at his apartment, he retrieved a large, tall glass from Sakura’s shelves and poured Akira a nice, icy glass of water, placing it down delicately in front of him. Akira gave him a weak, wobbly-looking smile, and Goro felt a burst of pride and a very bizarre burst of... domesticity???

Well, he didn’t have time to unpack all _that,_ so once again he stuffed his feelings down and instead went over to Sakura’s tiny little kitchen, to retrieve and re-heat a couple bowls of curry rice for the two of them. It didn’t take long to gather, only slightly longer than he felt Sakura himself took, accounting for Goro’s unfamiliarity with the place. Shortly enough the two boys were seated next to each other, chopsticks in hand, steaming piles of somewhat-unhealthy-but-too-delicious-for-it-to-matter-much (though Goro did have a sudden, sincere thought that he hoped very much indeed that this wasn’t all Akira subsisted on for his day-to-day meals), wonderful Leblanc Curry.

They said a quick itadakimasu together, Akira’s voice already sounding better, his posture, glanced out of the corner of Goro’s eye, already looking more life-like, and then there was just food and drink and content hums shared between them.

By the time they finished and, shortly thereafter, Goro left with just barely enough time to catch the last train back to his apartment, the atmosphere in Leblanc was metric tonnes lighter, and Akira seemed much, much better off. When he wished Goro a good night and a safe trip home, the smile on Akira’s face was practically shining with gratitude and affection, and Goro only managed a small smile, a small blush, a small “You too, Kurusu-kun,” before the sensation was too much and he had to turn away. 

It wasn’t the heat of summer that kept him warm the whole ride home, the whole walk to his apartment, through all that he had to do to prepare for bed once he got back.

And if the text he got shortly after climbing into bed, a brief ‘Thanks again, Goro <3‘ made him feel more human, more alive, more...happy, than he had felt in more years than he could count on his fingers... well.

Even a person like him was allowed to have some things, sometimes.

\---

Several weeks later, the Medjed crisis had been resolved, the Thieves were being hailed as national heroes, had seemingly picked up a new member to boot, and Goro’s workload and headaches both had quintupled in size. He spent almost all of his non-working hours at Leblanc, now, and while it made for a much better atmosphere to get his work done than his apartment, or even another cafe somewhere closer to home would, it just... wasn’t doing as much for Goro as it used to.

It was entirely possible, though it wasn’t a possibility that Goro liked considering unless he was in a mood to hate himself, that this lack of typical comfort was mostly due to the fact that Akira and his cadre of friends were out having the time of their lives, on vacation in fucking _Hawaii,_ while Goro was stuck here, dealing with police work and secretly compiling new sheafs of evidence against Shido and his cohorts _and_ dealing with the aftermath of a mental shutdown he had been forced to frame the Thieves for **_and_ **having to plan the next leg of Shido’s plot against them, which involved framing the thieves even more irrefutably for another murder, then divebombing Goro’s public reputation afterwards, and, frankly, if Goro had to take one more day without _anything_ good happening he was going to smash all his plateware against the wall the next time he got home (for the third time this month), and-

The bell above Leblanc’s door rang, and Goro looked irritably up from his counter seat to see who it was, and Akira walked through the door.

The caustic, burning weight pressing down on and cutting into Goro’s skin dissipated as if it had never been there, and Akira smiled, and Goro smiled back, and he felt like a person again.

He wasn’t even in the mood to hate himself for being so pathetically weak to this boy’s charms. What a waste.

Akira tugged his suitcase (a decent, but still pretty ratty-looking one that was clearly a hand-me-down from Sakura) through the door and let it swing shut behind him, giving Goro an odd hand signal that he vaguely recognized as meaning something in Hawaiian culture. He was wearing a blisteringly loud floral shirt, had a mostly-withered lei of white and purple flowers hanging around his neck, and had the _gall_ to greet Goro with a drawling, smirky “Alooooooo-ha~”

Goro snorted out an ugly laugh, and hated himself, and felt very happy all at the same time. He didn’t return the weird, thumb-and-pinky thing Akira was doing, but he did try for a kawaii kind of V sign with his fingers and a purposefully cutsey smile instead, eyes closed, not sure what he was trying for but hoping it worked all the same. “Welcome back,” he replied, and the sincere warmth he heard in his own voice sent shockwaves through Goro.

He opened his eyes, and saw Akira looking genuinely flustered, face bright red from more than just a sunburn, and felt deeply victorious, pleased with himself to an extreme-

-until, as was its wont, Goro’s mind reminded him that within his attache case were the files and plans Goro had crafted to destroy Akira’s entire life.

Goro tried as hard as he could not to show any of the crushing despair that flooded through him all of a sudden, but Akira seemed to notice anyways, his face growing concerned. “Hey, you okay?” He sounded tired, but worried, and the creases on his face only grew as he looked Goro over more and more. Goro’s cheeks heated at the attention, embarrassed and ashamed at what he probably looked like. His aforementioned very, very bad week had taken a toll on his mental health, and he had always done a shit job at maintaining his personal upkeep when his mental health was sagging. At the end of a hot day like this, his concealer had probably all flaked off already, the circles under his eyes and stress-acne all too apparent. He could tell his shirt was half-untucked too, now that he was paying attention, and he had a feeling he missed a belt loop when he was getting dressed earlier. It was surprising that his attempt at being cutesy just earlier hadn’t come off as monstrous instead.

The humiliation was crushing, but only for a very brief moment, as, once again without Goro noticing, somehow, Akira was suddenly at his side, an arm wrapping around Goro, Akira’s hand squeezing and rubbing against Goro’s shoulders much the same way Goro had with Akira, weeks ago. “Rough day?” Akira asked, his voice, and by extention, his face much closer than Goro thought it would be, his tone much warmer than Goro deserved for it to be.

He sighed, the tension already starting to seep out of his bones at Akira’s touch, Goro hating himself for being so easy again, but not even being able to hate himself as much as he normally did, so soothing was Akira’s presence. “ A rough week, actually,” Goro sighed, then let out a single, quiet, self-deprecating chuckle. “Or series of weeks, I suppose. Or months. Or life. I don’t... “

He trailed off, having revealed too much, having to cut off the flow of his words, his weak heart all too eager to reveal far too much more in the comfort and safety of Akira’s half-embrace. Instead, Goro twisted the line from his brain to his mouth shut like one would a garden hose. He propped his elbows up onto Leblanc’s counter, resting his head in his hands like that, long-buried exhaustion starting to seep up through the cracks in his facade like oil in the desert. 

Akira, _fucking_ Akira, only moved closer to him, only pressed his chest more flush against Goro’s side, only wrapped his other arm around Goro’s front, side-hugging him as if it was the most natural thing to do. A distant, more aware part of Goro’s mind noticed the rapid thumps of Akira’s heartbeat speeding up against Goro’s arm, but the rest of Goro’s mind was too god damn overwhelmed by receiving his first hug in over a decade and not knowing what the hell to do with it.

He would _not_ cry, that one thing he _refused_ to do, whatever the hell it took to stop it, he would _not **cry.**_

But it was a close thing.

“Lonely?” Akira murmured, and his forehead was pressed against the side of Goro’s head, so his voice sounded off mere inches from Goro’s ear, sent shivers down his spine. It was an absurd thing to ask, it was so, so much more than loneliness that was breaking Goro down, more than Akira could possibly ever know.

And yet all Goro could do was respond in a broken, utterly wrecked voice “ ** _Yes._** ” 

At once, Akira held Goro all the tighter, and Goro **_did not cry,_** but he did sag more into Akira’s hold, and his breaths did become very blatantly ragged, and his elbows slipped off of the counter, taking several papers with them, and he found himself clumsily holding onto Akira’s arms like the lifeline they were.

Akechi Goro did not cry in front of Akira, but for a little while at least, he let himself fall totally apart, brutally worn seams and threads loosening and collapsing all at once and staying so for some time.

Some time later, Goro regained enough awareness of himself to notice that he had turned on the barstool at some point, hugging Akira back properly, if awkwardly, face mashed against Akira’s shoulder, ** _not crying,_** but shuddering and heaving with every breath he took. With a slight, out-of-body awareness, he noticed the small sensations more than anything else; the tickle of the flower petals that hung around Akira as they brushed against Goro’s cheek, the slight prickle of barely-grown stubble where Akira’s chin met Goro’s neck, the slight dampness on Goro’s back where the sweat of Akira’s hands had started to stain his shirt. Most confusingly, he felt Akira’s scent suffuse through his brain, his senses, an inexplicable image of a bed he hadn’t seen in years and years and missed very terribly floating into the forefront of his mind in response.

Akira spoke up softly, not suddenly, but Goro still wasn’t expecting it, didn’t know how much time had passed again, hated the disorientation that came with that kind of realization. “A friend of mine told me that water and food can help a lot after this kind of thing,” he murmured, and Goro almost shattered completely at being called Akira’s _friend,_ with everything that was destined to happen between them, but Akira kept speaking before Goro could collapse the rest of the way. “Guy’s pretty smart, seemed to work for me really well. Should I...?”

Goro sniffled, then took a deep, long breath, and shook his head as he let it out, moving back from the hug as he did so. “No, no, I... it’s a good idea, but let me. I can’t...” Goro looked around, suddenly wondering where Sakura was during all of this, not really that surprised to not see him anywhere, not really that surprised to see it had become night sometime during Goro’s breakdown. Goro took another deep, shuddery breath, and released Akira, trying for some kind of smile as he spoke, and almost managing it. The jagged, rough edge of his voice ruined the effect pretty badly, though. “I couldn’t stand being even more useless than I already have been. You just got back from a flight, after all- sit, I’ll...” Goro gestured vaguely in the direction of the kitchen, and Akira’s arms loosened enough for Goro to get up and make his way over there...

...but they didn’t let go of Goro completely. Somehow, awkwardly but not awkwardly enough for Goro to not be able to move, Akira was still holding him, if loosely, walking with him over behind the bar and to where the pots and pans were. Goro paused for a moment in his movement, tried very hard to think of something to say, some way to more firmly tell Akira to relax, but then Akira squeezed his hand very gently around the area of Goro’s ribs, and Goro couldn’t think of much of anything at all, and he continued moving around the kitchen with an affectionate boy attached to him.

When Goro had gotten a tupperware container of curry out of the fridge and dumped it in a pot to reheat, Akira drew closer still, pressing his forehead against the back of Goro’s neck as Goro stirred the pot. Neither of them spoke, and very slowly, very briefly, Goro felt the press of something softer through the fabric of his shirt. It went away before Goro could think much of it, besides a blisteringly flustered burst of mental static, but the gentle, oval-shaped touch burned like a brand against Goro’s skin for the rest of the night.

They ate, after a while, pressed into the same side of one of Leblanc’s booths. One of Akira’s arms was still slung around Goro, and if Goro was leaning against Akira enough so that he could have easily rested his head against the other boy’s shoulder, well, nobody but them had to know about it.

Akira moved away from Goro only briefly, to put their dishes in the sink when they were done and call somebody up on the ugly yellow landline phone Sakura had, speaking to them briefly, tiredly. He joined Goro at the booth again as soon as he hung up, and they resumed their earlier position as if it were wholly natural, which was exactly how it felt. 

Some unknown amount of time later, a knock at the door interrupted their peace and quiet. Goro lifted his head up from where it had fallen against Akira’s shoulder at some point to look at the source of the disturbance, and Akira sighed, patted his side. “Called a friend to drive you home, so you wouldn’t have to walk,” he mumbled, and while a part of Goro’s brain that Goro had become soothed enough to be able to hear pointed out that he really wouldn’t have been all that opposed to staying over instead, he knew that it was still too soon, that whatever this was between them that let them do all of this was barely in its Spring, just starting to bloom, and a sleep-over at this point would be akin to dousing the flower with a whole can’s worth of water.

The woman at the door was slightly taller than either Akira or Goro, a tired but concerned look on her face that only listed more towards concerned when she got a good look at the two boys. She seemed trustworthy, though, and had the body language of a teacher or a parent all too accustomed to taking care of careless kids, so Goro trusted her (and Akira’s judgment, of course) enough to let her take him home. 

He and Akira wished each other good night, and if the woman saw the two of them briefly hold hands, briefly squeeze them together, briefly smile far more intimately than friends ever could, well.

\---

It was months later before Goro had another day as bad as that. He had _bad days_ in the intervening time, sure- lots of them, really. Akira did as well, and they fell quickly into a habit of comforting each other with hugs and gentle touches whenever things got bad, became professional-grade experts at telling when one of them was feeling even a little shitty, and responding accordingly. At some point, they shifted their... well, Goro wouldn’t call them something as embarrassing as ‘cuddle sessions,’ though that was exactly what they were, from Leblanc itself to upstairs in Akira’s room, and from there had shifted from Akira’s ratty, uncomfortable couch to his just as ratty, uncomfortable mattress, pressed up against each other from tip to toe, letting each others’ warmth soothe the ache of the cold from their lives and the slowly approaching falltime both.

Nothing that happened over the course of all of that ever really got to the point that Goro would label it a crisis, until the day shortly before Okumura Kunikazu was scheduled to have his heart changed and, subsequently, be killed, when Goro got the call informing him that Shido had decided that Goro would have to kill Akira at the end of all this.

Goro took the call, finding a private corner of the Yongen-Jaya subway station to speak, and managed the call calmly and professionally, and hung up the call without so much as a shaky hand, and then proceeded to emotionally reenact footage of a hundred-story skyscraper imploding and collapsing in on itself.

He sunk to the filthy, sticky floor of the subway station, barely managing to shove his phone in his pocket before they shuddered their way up to his face, trying in vain to catch he sudden rain of tears spilling out of him. When had he become this weak? When had he become the kind of person who would weep openly in public? 

When had the thought of losing Akira, much less having to be the one to pull the trigger himself, become enough to make Goro question the worth of everything his entire life had been building towards?

Goro stayed like that until his brain became capable of processing all the murmurs from passersby directed at him, and he very quickly, very messily scrambled back to his feet, pulling his attache case to his chest and rushing out of the station. He ran on autopilot, knowing somewhere in the back of his brain, behind the tsunami of pain crashing through most of his neural processes, that his feet would be leading him towards Leblanc, towards the one place in the world he felt safety, comfort, towards the one place in the world he should **_not_ **be going to after getting that kind of news, but he couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t force himself to do anything but run and try to ignore the wet trails, growing wetter still, running down the sides of his cheeks.

He did manage, at the very least, to turn into the alleyway next to Leblanc itself, before he showed up at the cafe looking like he just came from a funeral, which wasn’t that far off, really. Goro dropped his case to the ground, dug in his pockets for a tissue or something to clean his face up with, managing to find a whole packet of them tucked into an inner pocket of his blazer. Thanking the foresight of his past self, he spent a few minutes rubbing and scrubbing at the tear and snot stains on his skin, cursing aloud each time he rubbed too hard and came off with some of his concealer, which was counterproductive in so many ways. Eventually, he managed to become somewhat presentable, or so he hoped. Taking his phone out again, even if it was just to open the camera app and check his appearance, would have been way, way too much for Goro to manage right now, in the wake of that phone call, so he’d just have to go on instinct and hope.

Goro straightened himself up, picked up his attache case, and walked out of the alleyway-

-only to see Akira approaching from the opposite direction, phone to his ear, a horrified expression on his face- one that only grew more horrified as he caught sight of Goro. They took each other in for a few, utterly silent seconds... 

...and somewhere in his mind Goro realized suddenly that Akira _knew._ That somehow, inexplicably, Akira knew everything, about Goro’s work in the metaverse, about his responsibility for the plots against the Thieves...

...about the call he just got, where he agreed to the plan for him to personally murder Akira in cold blood, a call that Akira was apparently getting a briefing on himself this very moment.

The black-and-white head of a cat poked its head out of Akira’s bag, looked around, saw Goro, and said in a human voice from its little cat mouth “Oh, shit.”

Goro turned and ran. He heard a _thump_ and a pissed-off shout from behind him, and managed to get another two steps before a hand closed around his arm, yanking him back with surprising strength, forcing him to turn around and fall face-first into Akira’s heaving, panting chest.

Without meaning to, Goro looked up at Akira. He saw the pain, the confusion, the _betrayal_ evident across Akira’s features, and felt the last shards of his mask shatter into dust. Goro felt the hot, sickly feeling of tears start to prick and pour from his eyes again, felt his expression twist and deform as all the pain and bottomlessly deep sadness he had kept buried for all these years came to the surface. Somehow, utterly illogically to Goro’s mind, he saw Akira’s expression soften in response, saw the confusion and sadness win out among all the other feelings playing on Akira’s face. 

A beat passed, then two, then Akira turned, still holding Goro’s arm, and dragged him forwards, stumbling, into Leblanc. The voice that Goro was pretty sure had come from Akira’s cat sounded off again behind them, incomprehensible but clearly upset, and Sojiro said something alarmed and admonishing, other customers clearly present in the cafe today, but Goro wasn’t, couldn’t pay attention to any of that as Akira dragged him through the cafe and upstairs to Akira’s room.

Akira sat Goro down onto the lumpy couch, not having to work very hard to do so, Goro far beyond the point of resisting Akira’s lead, then spent a moment or two shoving the small table in front of the couch away. Once Akira apparently judged there to be enough space, he turned back to face Goro, walked over-

-and very awkwardly mounted Goro’s lap, knees on either side of Goro’s legs, butt barely resting on Goro’s own knees, arms wrapping quickly around Goro’s shoulders as Akira buried his head in the crook of Goro’s neck. They stayed like that for a minute, two, then Akira pulled back and cupped Goro’s cheeks in his hands.

Goro couldn’t move his eyes away from Akira’s, saw the same feelings wracking his own heart reflected in the other boy’s. Goro opened his mouth to speak, only able to manage a creaky, tearful sounding “ _Akira..._ ”

Akira returned with a “ _Goro..._ ” that sounded almost exactly the same, tone for tone, pain for pain, and leaned in at the same time Goro did, drawn inexorably towards each other by the mirrored bonds in their hearts until their lips met.

It wasn’t a passionate kiss, not one full of love or lust or a sudden release of joy and tension, but it was perfection all the same. It felt like something they had been doing for a long time, like a strata of communication and bonding and sharing of feelings that they had been a step away from since their first few conversations. Neither boy made any effort, any movement to break away, breathing noisily and messily through their noses and in the brief quarter-seconds their lips parted from one another, holding on for longer than either of them could keep track of in the half-oxygen-deprived, wholly, body-and-soul content state they found themselves in.

When they broke from the kiss, it was only so that they could move, both acting on the same impulse at the same time, from the couch to Akira’s bed, Goro collapsing on top of Akira and tangling his fingers in Akira’s hair, his legs with Akira’s legs, their lips together, again, over and over. Heat and need started to creep into the affair- not enough to be anything sexual, not yet, not today, just a marrow-deep craving of each other’s bodies, of contact, of Touch.

Minutes and hours passed like that. They moved and shifted, changed positions and broke for air, spent time just clinging to one another as much as they did kissing every bit of each other’s skin that they could reach without trying to remove their tacky, tear-slicked clothes. When they finally parted, knowing in their hearts that it was time to stop for now, they were laying side-by-side, limbs still tangled around one another, chests pressed so close they could feel the differences in the pace of their respective heartbeats. Goro felt like his ran a little faster than Akira’s, which wasn’t that much of a surprise to him, frankly, but it was only by a little.

Time passed like that, until eventually, inevitably, Akira spoke, broached the subject they both knew they had to address. “So... you don’t want to do it, right?” He sounded like he knew, but sounded just as painfully desperate to make sure, make as certain as he could.

“ ** _No,_** ” Goro said, emphatically, a little too loud and from deep inside his chest. “I... no, _fuck_ no, please...” For a moment, Goro wasn’t sure where his sentence was going, what he was going to say next, then he heard his heart beat, and he looked up into Akira’s eyes, and the dam broke yet again, and he pleaded, with all the strength he had left, “ _Please,_ please help me, Akira. I... I don’t... I can’t do this anymore, I...”

Goro felt himself lose speech, felt himself collapse into tears and crying again, felt himself fall back onto Akira’s chest as Akira quickly moved to hold him, to move them both so that Goro was laying bonelessly on top of Akira again, felt himself shift from boneless to clinging tight as he possibly could to Akira, to the one chance he had to live through all this, to _live_ for the first time in his life.

He could tell, passively, that Akira was reassuring him, that Akira was crying too, but was no less firm in his conviction that he and Goro would get through this together, though he couldn’t process any of the actual words Akira said. For the first time in as long as Goro could remember, he just let himself cry himself dry, cry every last bit of everything that had hurt him and that he had buried down over the years and years and **_years,_ **until he was totally wrung out, until he could feel Akira coming to the end of having done exactly the same thing too, beneath him.

They stayed like that for some time, just clinging to one another, coming down, or up, Goro supposed, from the tears and the release, until they felt almost stable again. 

After a time, Akira spoke, sounding drained and raw and more than a little tired. “You won’t have to go through this alone, Goro... you never have to be alone ever again, if you want...”

Goro felt Akira get less clingy and more properly snuggly, and felt himself get the same too, reaching an arm back to tug Akira’s sheets more fully over them both. All he was able to manage was a small, soft “Yes, please,” before the comfort and the warmth and the all-encompassing aura of Akira became too much, and he drifted off to sleep.

And when they awoke, and for all the days after, Akira’s promise rang true.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from 'Touch,' by Daft Punk, a song that is deeply beautiful, and also is mostly responsible for me learning how to use Audacity, just so I could go and edit out the SUPER fuckin unnecessarily creepy first two minutes of the damn thing. 
> 
> I wrote this after waking up and playing out a nice, sweet scenario of Akira being tired and sad and clingy and snuggling Goro at Leblanc's bar and then also while Goro was trying to cook in my head, and then I sat down and started to write and it just got super fuckin angsty out of nowhere ahahah...hah... I haven't written a purely angsty fic before, but I was tearing up while writing the last like third of this thing and then again while editing it, and then AGAIN just now while putting it into ao3. Whew. Exhausting. 
> 
> Some notes:
> 
> -It's implied, but just to state it explicitly, Akira is emotionally exhausted and wrecked during the first scene from what he saw in Futaba's Palace, and how hard it hit him.
> 
> -The hardest part of this fic was trying to describe how Akira and Goro's bodies were slotted together during all the cuddling, and I still don't know if it worked, but I hope it made sense
> 
> -Akira found out about Goro's plot earlier than in-game because, due to their frequent cuddle sessions in the weeks following Hawaii, Futaba was able to act on the Thieves' suspicions re: Akechi and bug his phone earlier.
> 
> I post fic every Thursday, BUT while I have another chapter of my longfic [ Like The Moon,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21227510) coming out next Thursday, 1/9, I'm not going to be posting anything the following Thursday, because my hands and wrists have been seriously acting up recently and I haven't been able to write very much at all for a bit now, so I'm gonna give myself a bit more time to recover and not have to push my poor lil' phalanges too hard. If you want more regular updates about my writing progress, assuming my weak-ass thumbs can manage to tap the letters into the twitter app on my phone, my Twitter is [ @SevventhSteen! ](https://twitter.com/SevventhSteen)
> 
> Happy New Year all, let's make 2020 the first really, wholly good year in a long while! See ya!


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